I'm a multiple-time entrepreneur, living and working in the heart of Silicon Valley for the past quarter century. Currently, I spend most of my time working on a new startup in the online education arena. I've got a BA in political science and an MBA from Stanford. Having been around technology and business on the leading edge, I write mostly about what's new and what's coming for companies and the country. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ You can e-mail me at forbes_at_rogodotnet

The Comprehensive Guide To Buying A New iPhone (And Selling Your Old One)

Two new iPhones, three different amounts of memory, eight color choices. It means AppleApple is now providing a bewildering 19 new models of iPhones for you to choose from. While choosing between red and yellow or silver and gold is going to be up to you, this guide will help you navigate the rest of your options. In addition, it’s easier than ever to trade in your old iPhone for a discount on your new purchase. I took a long look at those options two weeks ago in “iPhone Trade-In Options Multiply, Here’s Your Guide,” which I’ve updated below the buying guide here.

Two “new” models, both a bit familiar

iPhone 5c: While Apple has broken from tradition by offering two new models this year, the iPhone 5S and 5c, each shares a great deal of kinship with the current iPhone 5. The 5c, in particular, is a virtual clone hardware-wise. It has the same internals that made the iPhone 5, popular with three small changes (1) The FaceTime camera has been improved a bit (2) The battery is slightly larger (3) The phone will work on more 4G frequencies. You might never notice the last of those unless you travel abroad frequently and the other changes are subtle, but welcome.

The biggest change, of course, is the 5c comes in 5 colors (white, red, blue, green, and yellow) and is the first iPhone since the 3GS to be encased in plastic instead of metal. This promises to be a mixed bag. The plastic is high quality and won’t shatter like the glass back on the still-for-sale iPhone 4S (which will be free with a 2-year contract starting next Friday). It’s durability is unknown, but Apple has a lot riding on people being happy with it and the vast majority of smartphones are made of plastic. Apple is offering cases for $29 which have a Swiss-cheese pattern on the back allowing the main color to shine through. They come in the same 5 colors as the phone, plus black and white and the effect with the right combination is appealing.

Price: $99, 16GB / $199, 32GB

iPhone 5S: The 5S much more closely resembles the iPhone 5 physically, but the internals are far different. It has a brand new Apple-designed processor, the A7, which is unique in that its the first 64-bit smartphone chip. The graphics performance promises to be outstanding, but the chip allows for some other capabilities that make the 5S special, particularly with regards to photography. Apple says that rather than make everyone a great photographer, it wanted to teach the iPhone to take better pictures. To do that, it will now shoot a number of frames in rapid succession and show you the best of them.

The camera also has a better lens, a much better flash that promises much more realistic flesh tones, and a significantly improved image sensor. That last part means that even though the iPhone still has 8 megapixels, it will provide you more vivid images, especially when the light is low. And by keeping the resolution the same, those files will still be manageable in size for uploading and storing, which is an important convenience. A more detailed look will require hands-on time with the phone, but suffice it to say: If you take a lot of pictures with your iPhone, you’re going to want a 5S. It might not be the absolute best smartphone camera out there, but it will be among them and it will be yet another nail in the coffin of the low-end digital camera market.

A close look at the iPhone 5S will reveal that the home button has changed to enclose a fingerprint sensor, that can replace the passcode many use to lock their phone from prying eyes. The sensor can also serves as your App Store / iTunes “password” but can’t replace passwords in other apps or websites at this point. For corporate users and those that find themselves typing in a 4-digit code dozens of times per day, this prove popular.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

You can wipe your old phone once you’ve backed it up. If you do this in an Apple (or most third-party) stores, they should walk you through it.

On your own, it’s Settings –> General –> Reset –> Erase All Content and Settings. Confirm you want to do this only if you are absolutely certain you have a backup in iCloud and ideally also on your computer with iTunes.

That should protect you against any security concerns as it returns the phone to factory settings and purges all of its storage (aka memory) of whatever you’ve done or saved.

I’ve upgraded all my iDevices to ios7 today and I really love everything but the nine apps in each folder. Especially in the iPad!!! I can understand that the iPhone screen is small but why the ipad has also be 9 apps per page? Swiping the pages in one folder is really annoying because I need to see everything in front of me in the same page so I don’t focus too much each time on each page until I find what I want.